The background description provided herein is for the purpose of generally presenting the context of the disclosure. Unless otherwise indicated herein, the materials described in this section are not prior art to the claims in this application and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of physical objects or “things” embedded with electronics, software, sensors, and network connectivity, which enables these objects to collect and exchange data. The Internet of Things allows objects to be sensed and controlled remotely across existing network infrastructure, creating opportunities for more direct integration between the physical world and computer-based systems, and resulting in improved efficiency, accuracy and economic benefit. Each thing is uniquely identifiable through its embedded computing system but is able to interoperate within the existing Internet infrastructure.
Some IoT applications may involve an IoT device with sensor(s) to gather data, and to provide the sensor data to another device. For instance the IoT device may have limited memory and may need to transfer sensor data to a data consumer to free up memory for additional data gathering, or for other reasons (the IoT device may have a limited user interface and the sensor data may be transferred to another device to display the sensor data or information about the sensor data on a display of another device). However, data transmission, especially data transmission in a secure way, is costly in power usage.
Known schemes for powering secure data transmissions or other operations by the IoT device may not be appropriate for all applications. For instance, a size of the battery needed for powering the IoT device may be too large for some applications. Other schemes for powering the IoT device, such as connecting the IoT device to a constant power source, may also limit its applicability.